Gypsum mountain

Gypsum mountain

Gypsum mountain, located in the northern part of Taiyue Mountain, is one of the main peaks of Taiyue Mountain, with an altitude of 2532 meters. It is about 35 kilometers southeast of Lingshi County and 185 kilometers north of Taiyuan. It is a provincial-level scenic spot in the same position as Mianshan mountain in Jiexiu and Lingkong mountain in Qinyuan.

The total area of the scenic spot is about 75 square kilometers, and the developed tourist area is about 20 square kilometers. Here, the peaks are emerald, and the scenery is peculiar. Every time at the end of spring or early winter, there is spring rain and sand at the foot of the mountain, or continuous autumn rain, and the mountain is still covered with snow.

natural resources

Geological structure

Gypsum mountain is one of the main peaks of Taiyue Mountain, which has relatively independent geological structure characteristics. Tianhe, Baiyang River and ergoushui separate it from other peaks around it. It is a relatively isolated peak among the peaks of Taiyue. The altitude is 1100-2523.6 meters, with a total area of 35 square kilometers. In 2002, the area of gypsum mountain scenic spot planned to be developed will reach 75 square kilometers.

The gypsum hillside is steep with a height of 800-1400m and a slope of about 40 degrees. The mountain trend is north-south, and there are many faults exposed in the area, especially Xifeng, which forms the cliffs and caves. Moreover, because the formation of karst cave is a set of littoral facies clastic rock, which is called "Huoshan sandstone" by predecessors, there are horizontal cracks in it. Under the ancient erosion of limestone fissure water, many stalactites with different attitudes formed in the cave, forming a rich and colorful landscape. The gypsum mountain layer is old and relatively stable. From the seismological point of view, gypsum mountain is located in Huoshan fault zone. The fault zone starts from Hongshan in Jiexiu, passes through Mianshan and Shizishan to Huoshan. The Shizishan area is a grade 7 fracture zone. In history, there was no great earthquake in gypsum mountain area, and even the strong earthquake in other areas had no obvious influence on gypsum mountain area.

tourist resources

Gypsum mountain is surrounded by four peaks, green peaks, clear water, thousand foot giant waterfall, famous karst caves, ancient roads, red leaves and juniper pagoda. Since ancient times, it has been a famous historical mountain for people to pay homage to and visit. The tourism resources of gypsum mountain is a regional system with rich type structure and reasonable regional allocation. From the perspective of natural resource types, except for hot springs, it almost includes all the natural resources of Shanxi; from the perspective of resource allocation, the landscape features of gypsum mountain show a strong combination of differences, which is an ideal complementary resource of courtyard culture and religious culture. The completion of Dayun Expressway shortens the space-time combination of different tourism resources, which makes the tourism resources with natural characteristics of gypsum mountain more prominent in the whole province and even in the north.

plant resources

The vegetation in gypsum mountain is well preserved, with a forest coverage rate of 95% and a wide range of tree species, including 44 families and 239 species of trees and shrubs, mainly including Pinus tabulaeformis, Platycladus orientalis, juniper, Pinus bungeana, Larix gmelinii, Picea asperata (formerly known as mangrove), Quercus liaotungensis, Quercus geeri, Acer truncatum, etc. Among them, Pinus tabulaeformis is the most popular, known as the "hometown of Pinus tabulaeformis". Pinus elliottii and Pinus bungeana are unique landscape tree species in gypsum mountain, which have high ornamental value. The good natural vegetation of gypsum mountain makes it have a very good environmental quality, and the air bacteria content in the forest area is very low. According to the actual measurement and investigation, 589-1965 bacteria are found in the air per cubic meter, which is only 1 / 500-1 / 800 of the downtown area of the city. In addition, under the cooling effect of the forest, the summer temperature in the forest area is about 10% lower than that outside the mountain, making gypsum mountain an ideal place for leisure, recuperation and summer vacation.

Gypsum mountain has beautiful natural environment, rich forest and water resources, with forest coverage rate of 76% and vegetation coverage rate of 89%. From the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain, we can see a variety of plant belts with clear distribution levels: shrub belt, broad-leaved forest belt, mixed forest belt, coniferous forest belt, as well as meadow, moss and vines.

Development history

Related literature

Gypsum mountain is named after mineral gypsum. "Spring and autumn xuanmingbao" said: "paste, the liquid of God also." So the meaning of gypsum refers to the milky juice flowing out of the stone, which condenses into stalactite when meeting with air.

Because the ancients didn't understand the riddle of stalactite formed by water seepage in limestone layer, they had the saying of "paste mountain living stone", and deduced a beautiful legend of "feeling the stone dripping milk, embracing the real body" that the great man in white, one of the 32 incarnations of Guanyin Bodhisattva, sat down in this mountain to return to his true life. Gypsum mountain is well-known in the world. It began in the Han and Tang Dynasties and flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In the Han and Tang Dynasties, gypsum mountain was famous for lingqin ancient road. The lingqin ancient road on gypsum mountain starts from the Qin Jin ancient road in Renyi village of Lingshi County in the West and connects with the ancient Shangdang (now Changzhi) basin in the East. As early as the beginning of Han Dynasty, the ancient road of Qin and Jin Dynasty was the key point of the north and south of Jin. Han Xin conquered Zhao and Liu bangzheng. Lingqin ancient road connects the qinjin ancient road with Shangdang basin, and its importance is extraordinary. "Lingshi County annals" (Ming Wanli Edition) records: "Xiaowen mountain, in Shandong more than ten miles, according to legend, Emperor Xiaowen lived here, hence the name." This is the story of Liu Heng, Emperor Wen of Han Dynasty, who passed the lingqin ancient road when he returned to Chang'an from the Dai di. Among the people, there are also various sayings that Liu Wuzhou in the early Tang Dynasty, Yuan Hong, Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty, and Zhao Kuangyin, Emperor Taizu of the Song Dynasty, passed the lingqin ancient road. "Zhili Huozhou Zhi" (Daoguang 5th year edition) records: "yuerchuan (today's name is yuerquan), 120 Li to the East, connects Qinyuan boundary. The road leads to Huozhou, Yueyang, Wuxiang and Zhaocheng. The old records said: the mountains are dangerous and the forests are dense. It's a collection of bandits. In the fourth year of Wanli, it was proposed to build the fort and set up the inspection department, but it failed. Today, with a long period of peace, dense population and smooth mountain roads, it is not as dangerous as it used to be. " It can be seen that lingqin ancient road was still an important traffic road until Daoguang period of Qing Dynasty (AD 1821).

Historical development

In Ming and Qing Dynasties, Buddhism flourished on gypsum mountain, and the name of gypsum mountain became more and more popular. Since the eighth year of Hongwu in Ming Dynasty (1375 A.D.), monks and Taoists of Wutai Mountain are touring gypsum mountain. They see the steep rocks, deep caves, surrounded by mountains and towering green peaks. They praise: "this is really Penglai fairyland.". So he made a vow in front of the statue of Ziyi, to build a temple in Shigao mountain and promote Buddhism. After the cold and heat of Siyi, Xiayan Baiyi nunnery was completed. Monk Daozheng asked the mountain master Zhao to give alms to Buddhism, and made a contract. From then on, Buddhism settled in gypsum mountain. Since then, the Buddhist temple has been expanded and rebuilt several times, and the incense has declined and flourished. According to the records of the old gypsum mountain, when the Buddhist activities in gypsum mountain were at their peak, "the whole temple raised the board to knock on the ceremony, and more than 40 monks went to the hall in the hall, and they worked hard all day and night.". Every time there are large-scale activities such as pilgrimage and worship, there are more than 100 pilgrims. At the end of Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Qing Dynasty, Mr. Fu Shan, a famous scholar, visited gypsum mountain in the autumn of 1657. During his stay, he also left precious ink treasures for gypsum mountain: a stone carving of "Yifeng wall" at houzhaimen, a five character poem "Yifeng", which was included in Fu Shan's collection of poems and essays "frost red niche collection", and inscribed "mountain forest wild interest" for Tianzhu temple. Later generations made it into a wooden plaque and hung it on the bell tower gate of Tianzhu temple.

The Buddhist temples on gypsum mountain also have their unique features. The first is that the temple itself is almost entirely built in the cave, with no invasion of wind and rain, warm winter and cool summer. The cave is made of nature, and the beautiful scenery is skillfully hidden. The second is that Buddhism is the absolute advantage for worshiping people. The other is that "on both sides of the hall steps, there is a small hall of Guandi on the left and a small hall of Mountain God on the right, and a shrine is set in the middle of the lower steps to worship the emperor." (ren Chongyuan's four tours to gypsum mountain) is not like other temples. Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism are obviously integrated.

At the beginning of the Anti Japanese War, the Japanese invaders once occupied gypsum mountain and set up a stronghold in Tianzhu temple. Later, shigeshan became the grain base of the Taiyue guerrillas led by the Communist Party. At that time, the Anti Japanese government of Lingdong county often moved on shigeshan, which became a hub of the Japanese occupied area leading to the Taiyue base.

Features of scenic spots

Gypsum mountain does not produce gypsum. Gliding flying flying squirrels live on the cliff of the mountain. Their black and shiny feces (Chinese medicine "wulingzhi") flow down to the cave wall, and black creams are formed. Some people who don't know the truth regard them as the creams oozing from the rocks and name them gypsum mountain.

Gypsum mountain is located in Taiyue Mountain, 50 kilometers southeast of Lingshi County, Shanxi Province. It is located at the junction of Lingshi, Huozhou and Qinyuan counties, with Mianshan in the north, Huozhou in the south, Fenhe in the West and Lingkong mountain in the East. Gypsum mountain is composed of granite, limestone, gneiss and so on. It is Archaean. The karst between distant looking stones is like gypsum, so it is named. Niujiaoan, its commanding height, is 2532 meters above sea level, ranking fourth among the provincial peaks. Shizishan is the first batch of provincial scenic spots in Shanxi, with a total area of about 75 square kilometers.

Taiyue Mountain is the ancient Huotai mountain, or Huoshan mountain. It was uplifted during the Mesozoic Yanshanian movement and transformed by the Cenozoic Himalayan movement. It has a history of more than 100 million years. The earliest records about Taiyue Mountain can be found in Yugong, and the more detailed one is the geography annals of Han Dynasty. The way is: "Hanoi is called Jizhou, its mountain is called Huo, its base is Yangyu, Sichuan is Rizhang, and its immersion is Fen and Lu; it benefits pines and cypresses, its people are three men and five women, its livestock is suitable for cattle and sheep, and its valley is suitable for millet.".

Gypsum mountain scenic area has developed a tourist area of about 20 square kilometers. At the elevation of 1500-1800 meters of the main peak, a cliff with a height of about 3400 meters and a width of about 2300 meters has been cut by Tiangong, which is absolutely beautiful

Chinese PinYin : Shi Gao Shan